‘Oh, I’m not complaining, Manu. I am quite enjoying this. A novelty for a city dweller.’
‘It is, indeed.’ Manu paused for moment and looked around as if seeking something. ‘Say, were you walking along here ten to fifteen minutes ago?’ he asked.
‘No. I just came out of the front door.’
‘Did you see or hear anyone when you stepped out?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I saw someone on this walkway. I saw him from my window.’ He jerked his thumb at the French windows through which he had come. ‘That’s my room. He seemed to be prowling around.’
‘Prowling?’
‘That’s the impression I got. There seemed to be something stealthy about the way he was moving. But that could be due to the fog as well. You too were walking slowly. But, come to think of it, he was shorter than you, smaller built. He was walking faster.’
‘I wanted to see the garden and the grounds. But not knowing my way around, I thought it best that I go about cautiously.’
‘Of course! Say, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? In fifteen minutes, the fog will thin out sufficiently for you to see the estate. I’ll take you on a short tour.’
‘Sure.’
Half an hour later, they were back on the walkway outside Manu’s French windows. The world was much clearer now, although wispy mist still hugged the dew-drenched ground and lingered among the trees. The mansion was more visible, with its stone walls, severe and grey, stretching for fifty yards along the longer side.
A third set of French windows led from a room at the farthest end of the mansion. A part of the steps had been converted into a ramp. This, Athreya guessed, must be Bhaskar’s room. The ramp must have been added to facilitate the passage of the latest owner’s wheelchair.
The upper floor of the mansion was punctuated by six large windows, all barred. All of them were dark. Three of these rooms were occupied by Dora, Richie and Michelle. The other side of the upper floor also had six rooms, Manu said. But they were currently not in a state to be occupied, as the plumbing and electrical wiring were awaiting repairs.
On their right was the rose garden with an impressive array of bushes sporting roses of different hues, from white to dark red. Beyond that was a low single-storeyed building, which Manu said was the annex. It comprised six guest rooms, only one of which was now lit. It was occupied by Varadan. Some of the neighbours who were to arrive later in the day would be housed there. Bhaskar had invited four neighbours to the party.
They went down the walkway, past the mansion, on to a stretch that had a grove of tall trees to the left and the manicured inner lawn to the right. At the end of the walkway stood a building with a steepled roof covered with grey shingles. Like the front of the mansion, this building too sported ivy. But the creepers had not crept up the walls completely, as they had the mansion’s facade. Questing fingers of dark green had reached halfway up most walls, and had closed over the structure’s entire height here and there.
This was the chapel. Manu pushed the door, which swung open with a creak of protest. It turned out to be a long room with an altar on a dais at the far end. The gilded altar looked new and heavy, and was made of a combination of wood, metal and stone. Its top comprised a long stone slab, with its middle section supported by five metal pillars and both ends supported by wooden cabinets.
An aisle ran down the middle of the room, from the door to the altar, with pews on either side. Between the front row of pews and the dais on which the altar stood was an open space, about five yards in length, that was covered with a number of rectangular mats. At either end of the open space, to the right and the left extremes, were two doors, which were shut and bolted.
The far wall behind the altar bore a cross and a mural depicting Jesus. On the dais, between the altar and the mural was enough space for three or four people to stand or sit. Two long wooden benches ran along the wall on either side of the mural. Five tall candlesticks, finely engraved and polished, stood on the altar. All the windows on the side walls of the chapel were closed and latched.
‘Do you have a priest here?’ Athreya asked.
‘No,’ Manu replied. ‘But we have Father Tobias up near the main road from which we turned into the valley yesterday. He runs a small church not far from where the landslide took place.’
‘I remember Dora pointing out a church just before we turned into the mud road that took us to the hilltop.’
‘That’s the one. We send word to Father Tobias if we need him at the chapel, and he willingly obliges.’
They left the chapel and went behind it to the Grey Brook. Crystal-clear water gurgled as it flowed over rocks and stones worn smooth over time. The brook was a good fifteen feet below them, where dark rock dropped sheer to meet it. The blackish colour of the rock bed and the pebbles made the brook look grey–hence the name ‘Grey Brook’, Athreya surmised.
Along the brook was another pathway that went upstream and around the inner lawn, which they took. A little distance up the path, at the very bank of the brook, was a raised structure with no walls, but with a shingled roof. Sunset Deck, Manu called it. From there, the pathway curved and went back towards the rose garden and the annex.
‘Further upstream, another walkway leads to the rock garden and the family cemetery,’ Manu said as they reached the annex and turned
